"Okay, I'm ready," he said, satisfied. "Let's go."
"Are you sure you brought enough?"
"Got everything I need."
I stared at the suitcase. "It looks like you packed a small farm animal in there."
"One thing I've learned is that you can never bring too much stuff when you're traveling."
"I always thought the opposite was true."
He winked. "No, that's just a myth put out by the airlines. Don't believe it. And when you run out of things on the trip, don't worry--I'll be happy to share."
We found a restaurant in downtown Fort Lauderdale where we ate outside and watched people wander in and out of bars up and down the street.
We bantered back and forth until finally Micah paused. Leaning back in his chair, he squinted at me.
"You're still not into this, are you? What we're doing, I mean?"
"I'm getting there."
"Did you ever think you might be depressed?"
"I'm not depressed. Just busy."
"It runs in our family, you know. Some of our relatives are depressed."
"I'm not depressed."
"They have medication now. It might do you some good."
"I don't need medication."
"Denial is an ugly thing, Nicky."
"I'm not in denial."
"See what I mean? That's denial."
"You're a pain, you know that?"
"Yeah. That's what Christine says."
"She's a smart lady."
"That she is. But she's not here, and right now, we're talking about you. So why are you depressed, little brother? You're definitely not excited about this, and we're on the verge of leaving. Talk to me. I'll be your shrink."
"I'm not depressed," I said again. "Like I said, I'm swamped. You have no idea how busy I've been. It's just . . . not the right time for something like this."
"That's not true," he said, shaking his head. "You're choosing to let life control you, instead of the other way around. That's the big secret. You choose the kind of life you want to live."
"You always say that."
"Only because it's true. Using you as an example--you're busy because you're behind on all your deadlines and want to catch up, right?"
"Exactly."
"But what if you missed your deadline? It's not as if you're going to get fired, are you?"
"No, but--"
"But you think bad things will happen if you do," he finished for me. "So, in other words, you're making a choice. And if it's your choice, then accept it, but don't let it control you. In the same way, you can choose to be excited about the trip. That's entirely up to you."
I looked away, shaking my head. "It's not always that easy," I said slowly. "You don't choose everything. Sometimes life throws you curveballs."
"You don't think I know that?" he said softly. "Look, just so you know, this trip is going to be great. You just wait. After all this is over, you'll look back and be glad you came. And then you'll thank me for bringing you along."
"I invited you to come, remember?"
"Oh, yeah. You're right." He shrugged. "Well, in that case, be a good host, and stop ruining my buzz." He turned to get the waitress's attention. "This man needs a cocktail."
Despite myself, I laughed.
Maybe it was my brother's pep talk, or maybe it was the cocktail, but whatever the reason I gradually warmed to the idea of going. Whether I had time to go was now irrelevant, after all, and my brother's good mood was infectious. My brother has always had this effect on me. With his confidence and easygoing manner, he has always been a hit at parties, and he'd been the best man in six different weddings. Six.
The next day, we went by the reception room TCS had arranged to check in for the trip. We signed in, gave them our passports, and got our luggage tags. Each was large, pink, and numbered, so that the TCS crew could easily make sure every bag was accounted for. One of the nice things about the trip, we would later learn, is that TCS handled all the luggage. Our only responsibility would be to have the luggage outside our hotel room at the appointed time.
We spent the afternoon relaxing by the pool, and later that evening we attended an introductory cocktail party and dinner. It was our first chance to meet our fellow travelers.
There would be eighty-six of us on the trip, most of whom were considerably older than Micah or I. We began the gradual process of getting to know our traveling companions.
We mingled and chatted with a few people, and eventually made our way to the ballroom, where tables had been set up. As we ate, we were introduced to the TCS staff; quite a few would be traveling with us, to make sure everything went smoothly. We were introduced to guest lecturers and Jill Hannah, the physician who would attend to any medical issues that might arise.
Only a couple of years older than we were, she smiled easily, and would end up becoming one of our closest friends on the trip. Auspiciously, she was seated at our table.
"Any words of advice?" I asked her.
"Don't eat the vegetables or salads, no matter how nice the hotel is."
"Because of the fertilizers or soil?"
"No," she said. "Because they wash them in the local water, and you never know whether it's been purified."
"Anything else?"
"Don't use the tap when you brush your teeth either. Take these precautions, and you'll probably be fine. I'm going to say the same thing to the rest of the group later, when it's my turn to talk. But just wait--half these people won't listen, and they'll end up sick. You don't want to be sick when you travel like this. Trust me. It's no fun."
As she spoke, I could see her eyes darting from me to Micah and back to me again.
"You guys are brothers, right?"
We nodded.
"Twins?"
We get that quite a bit, actually. I shook my head.
"No."
"But you're older, right?"
"No, he is." I grimaced.
Micah leaned in, looking inordinately pleased by her comment. Micah enjoyed the fact that nearly everyone thought he was younger than I when they saw us together.
"I've always told him he should take better care of himself," he chided.
She smiled. "Are you guys married?"
"We both are," I answered.
"Why did you come together, and not with your wives?"
We explained about our children and showed her pictures of our families. Finally, she looked up at us again.
"I think it's great that you two are doing this together. Siblings aren't always as close as they should be. Were you always this close?"
I hesitated.
"Not always," I finally admitted.
In 1973, halfway through the school year, we moved to Grand Island, Nebraska. Or rather, everyone in the family except my dad moved. At the time, my mom told us that we were leaving so that my dad would be able to finish his dissertation, and we moved into a small duplex just around the corner from my mom's parents' house. While my dad did indeed finish his dissertation that year, he and my mother had in fact separated. It was years, however, before we ever learned the truth about this. My mom was not above keeping secrets from us if she thought the truth would hurt us.
Grand Island was a sleepy little town, nestled in the middle of the state, and as different from Los Angeles as a place could be. Wide yards separated the homes, and directly across the street from my grandparents was the elementary school we'd attend. Unlike the schools we'd been attending, Gates Elementary had massive grass fields, baseball diamonds, and--on the far side, just off the school property--a set of train tracks, where trains would come by regularly.
It didn't take long before my brother and I were laying pennies and nickels on the tracks, waiting for the train to crush and flatten them, but unlike Los Angeles, there wasn't much else to do in the way of exploring or getting in trouble. There weren't any vacant, burned-out buildings in which we could build forts, there were no bridges to climb, and though there were ravens, none of
them ever attacked us. As she had in Los Angeles, my mom got a job--this time as an optometrist's assistant--and after school, we'd head to my grandparents'. There, my grandmother would make us chocolate malts and cinnamon toast (the most exquisite afternoon snack in the world) and we'd either play in the yard or go down to the basement, where my uncle Joe kept his collection of model airplanes. There were probably over a hundred models, including Spitfires and Japanese Zeros, and my uncle had assembled them as if they would someday hang in a museum. They were painted in exacting, excruciating detail, and though we weren't allowed to touch them, we spent hours looking at them.